Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication control technique in a communication apparatus capable of performing wireless communication via an antenna.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a so-called handover technique of facilitating setting for wireless communication by incorporating a non-contact IC in a portable apparatus capable of performing wireless communication has been implemented. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2013-157736 discloses a system in which apparatuses share communication parameters (an SSID and password) necessary for wireless LAN connection by using NFC (Near Field Communication) to readily establish a wireless LAN connection. In this case, one of the apparatuses incorporates a non-contact IC tag and the other incorporates a reader/writer for communicating with the non-contact IC tag.
A non-contact IC can store data in an internal memory, and a reader/writer apparatus can perform an operation of reading out data from the internal memory of the non-contact IC and an operation of writing data in the internal memory.
Note that the non-contact IC can perform a wireless communication operation by using, as power, electromagnetic waves received from the reader/writer apparatus. Consequently, even if the wireless communication apparatus incorporating the non-contact IC is OFF, the reader/writer apparatus can perform an operation of writing or reading out data in or from the non-contact IC.
As described above, the non-contact IC can perform an operation without receiving power supply from the apparatus incorporating it. This is an advantage of the non-contact IC but may impose an inconvenience. For example, even if the user does not desire wireless communication by the non-contact IC, wireless communication may be performed against user's intention. For example, a non-contact IC chip is kept enabled during a period from when power supply to the non-contact IC chip is stopped by a power-off operation or the like accepted by the apparatus from the user until the power supply voltage of the non-contact IC chip decreases to an inoperable voltage. That is, when the reader/writer apparatus comes closer, a wireless communication operation may be unwantedly performed. This may cause the inconvenience that the reader/writer apparatus attempts to perform handover while the apparatus incorporating the non-contact IC is powered off. In addition, when the reader/writer apparatus comes closer, the apparatus incorporating the non-contact IC may be powered on with hardware, resulting in inconsistency with shutdown processing of software. In this case, the hardware is operating, thereby wasting a battery.